Italian Drawings from the collection of Janos Scholz

7/29/2019 Italian Drawings from the collection of Janos Scholz

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I t a l i a n DrawingsF r o m t h e Col lec t ion o f J a n o s S c h o l z

Italiandrawings entbyJanos Scholz, as well asprints and drawingsthat have passed rom hiscollectionto the Museum duringthreedecades,will be shownfrom May 9 to September 2 inthe ThomasJ. WatsonLibraryGalleries.

JANOS SCHOLZ is a distinguished musician,a cellist born in Hungary who became anAmerican citizen in I939. Traveling exten-sively here and abroad to fulfill his concertengagements, he has scoured the known andoften the secret sources where Italian draw-ings, increasingly rare on the internationalmarket, can still be found. His eye was trainedto retain the exact look of pages of music, andthis visual ability has served him brilliantly instudying drawings. Nearly thirty yearsof thissearch and research,which is in itself a goodpart of the true collector's pleasure, has en-abled him to build up a group of Italian draw-ings that is perhaps unique among privatecollections in its extent and variety. Mr.Scholz ispartial to somany periodsand schoolsof Italian draughtsmanshipand has been sofortunate in his quarry that his collectionoffers a panorama of the complex history ofdrawing in Italy.Certain groups of material merit specialmention. Venice in the eighteenth century isrepresented in an unusually complete way.Fine examples by the dominatingpersonalitiesare surrounded by significant works of lessermasters, chosen to reveal the interplay ofstylistic currents in this felicitous period ofVenetian art. Mr. Scholz has been apioneer inthe rediscovery of Italian Baroque draughts-manship, and is the lucky possessorof beauti-ful examples illustrating the period. Not thatthe sixteenth century has been neglected; itsuffices to mention that the collection con-

tainsdrawingsby Raphael,Correggio,Par-migianino,and a remarkableeriesof sheetsby the Zuccarobrothers. heearliestdrawingin thecollectionsdated1321; his raredocu-ment heraldsa considerable roupof earlydrawingsn which the Veronese choolpre-dominates.

Mr.Scholz,a graduate f the RoyalAcad-emy of Music in Budapest,made his firstmajorconcert appearanceat Salzburg n 1929.Aninitialtrip to American 1933as a mem-ber of the RothStringQuartetwasfollowedby annualconcert ours n thiscountry,andby I939 New Yorkwas his home.That thismusician houldbe an ardentandinveteratecollector is not surprising,or the passionwas n thefamily.His maternal ncestors adformed a collectionof musicalmanuscriptsandbooksthat became, n I813, the nucleusof the libraryof the ViennaSocietyof theFriendsof Music,and his grandfatherwasa universalcollector, nterested n pictures,sculpture,objetsd'art.The collector'surgestruckMr. Scholzwhenhe wasvery young.At the ageof twelvehe tooka fancyto Ro-mancoins,and as he grewolderhe turned ofaience,porcelain,and books.By the 1930sprintsbeganto claim his attention,and hedevelopedas wella taste for orientalcarpetsthatstill hauntshim. ThenaboutI937he wassmittenwith a passion or Italiandrawings,one that hasgradually ometo dominateallhisactivitiesas a collector.

The engagingvarietyof the collection sapparentin the selection illustratedhere.Those who enjoy drawings-and they aremoreand morenumerous hesedays willbegratefuloMr. Scholz orlending omuchandso generouslyo the MetropolitanMuseum.J. B.

(Onthecover)GIOVANNI FRANCESCOBARBIERI, CALLEDGUERCINO1591-1666). KingSaintSupportedy TwoAngels.Penandbrownnk,bwash.9156x36x inches.L.65.I4.Io

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MAY 1965

T h e Metropolitanuseumo f A r t B U L L E T N

PART TWO

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GIOVANNI BATTISTA

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TEPOLO(1696-770). MadonnaEnthroned,Attendedby Three

Tiepolo was the most brilliant and one of the most prolific Italian draughtsmen of theeenth century. Once he had received a pictorial commission he would turn out a whole of preparatorydrawings,and he kept most of these sketches in his studio where they formkind of reference library. The present fine example is not related to a surviving pictureits style suggests a date around 1740.

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ANTONIO DI PUCCIO PISANO, CALPISANELLO (about 395-about 1455).Team of WaterBuffaloes.Pen and browbrownwash. 4Y6x 7Y inches.L.65.14.8In his pictures Pisanello portrayed aGothic world of fantastic pageantry, ba draughtsman he was a man of theRenaissance,concerned with the accuraservation of the world around him. Oversionsof this fine study of two yokedbuffaloes are to be found in Rotterdamin the Louvre.

VINCENZOCATENA (about 48o-afterStudy of Drapery.Black chalk heightenwhitegouache, on blue-greenpaper. 7 xinches.L.65.14.2Catena, a Venetian artist of the Renaismade this elegant drapery study, in every fold is finely modeled in white goufor the costume of the angel kneelingthe Virgin in an Annunciation that cdated about 1515. The picture is nowmuseum at Carpi.

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ALESSANDRO MAGANZA(1556-after i630). Figure Studies.Pen andbrown nk, brownwash, overblackleadpencil.so8 x 712 inches.L.65.i4.5Following the lead of JacopoTintoretto, Ve-netian draughtsmanship took on increasingspeed and brio as the sixteenth century ad-vanced. Here Maganza,an artist who workedon into the next century, has dashed off withwonderfuleconomy three different studies fora figure of the martyred St. Sebastian.


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GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, CALLED GUERCINO (1591-i666). (On the coKneelingSaint Supportedby Two Angels. Pen and brownink, brownwash. 9156 x I i6 iL.65.i4.Io. (Below) Landscapewith a Volcano. Brushand brownwash on bluepaper. 916I4Y4 inches. L.65.I4.4Guercino as a painter and as a draughtsmanwas fascinated by dramatic contrasts of lighshadow. In the drawingon the cover he studied the placement and the lighting of two fof angels who support the kneeling St. Philip Neri. The group was used in an altarpainted about I646 for the church of S. Maria di Galliera in Bologna.In Italy landscapecame into its own as an independent subject in the seventeenth cenand was a favorite form of expression for Bolognese artists like Guercino. Here he hasbrush and wash to conjure up an imaginary but perfectly convincing view of a volcano

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DOMENICO PIOLA ( 627-I703). Studies of Allegorical Figures: Time and a Woman Holdingthe Sun andthe Moon. Brushandbrownwash,overblack eadpencil. I I x 164 inches.L.65.I4.6Piola was a specialistin the frescoed decorationof palacesand churches.This suave and assureddesign with alternative solutions for an allegorical group in a roundel must have been drawnas a project for the ceiling decoration of some palace in Genoa.

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(Opposite) ANTONIO CANAL, CALLEDCANALETTO1697-1768). ArchitecturalCapriccio.Pen and brownink, gray and brownwash, over black crayon. I I1 x 816 inches.L.65.I4.ICanaletto in his views of Venice and Romewas sometimes tempted to group togethermonuments that were actually situated farfrom one another, or to add imaginary build-ings to real cityscapes. These capricci weremuch to the taste of the time. Here he hasgiven us a fairly accurate view of the Riodi Pieta in Venice with the apseof the churchof S. Lorenzo at the right. But to the left hehas added an imaginary campanileand closedthe composition in the foreground with anon-existent bridge.

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI(1720-1778). StandingMale Figures. Pen andbrown ink. 878 x 518 inches. L.65.I4.7These gesticulating figures were studied byPiranesi, in an elegant, abbreviated pen style,for the spectatorswho stride about in his lateengravings that represent real and fantasticmonuments of classicalantiquity.

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PIER LEONE GHEZZI (1674-I755). An Ecclesiastic Playing the Cello. Pen and brown in9g8 x 74 inches. L.65.I4.3

Ghezzi made a specialty of drawing caricaturesof the celebrities and the hangers-onin Rosociety of the firsthalf of the eighteenth century. This cello-playing priest is identified onM. L'Abbein the inscriptionat the bottom of the sheet, but the artist has more fully deschim on the reverse as Il virtuosodel Sigr.De Bacquevilleand has dated the drawingMarch

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Italian Drawings from the collection of Janos Scholz

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